Via the McClatchy Washington Bureau: Mahdi Army lowers its profile, anticipating arrival of U.S. troops:
-Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements.“We have explicit directions to keep a low profile . . . not to confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down,” said one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And this is exactly the kind of behavior one should expect under the circumstances. The belligerents don’t want to be obvious in their activities. The key significance of this situation?
The decision by al-Sadr to lower his force’s profile in Baghdad will likely cut violence in the city and allow American forces to show quick results from their beefed up presence. But it is also unlikely in the long term to change the balance of power here. Mahdi Army militiamen say that while they remain undercover now, they are simply waiting for the security plan to end.
Of course, on the other hand, if they feel that they are being shut out of power while they bide their time, then violence will certainly resume, just as clandestinely as possible. It will be interesting to see how al-Sadr’s power evolves in terms of non-violent politics. If he can continue to consolidate his power in the government, then he can easily afford to horde weapons and be patient.
Juan Cole makes some interesting observations concerning the current situation on the ground, including the following observation:
When I was in Beirut in 1975 during the beginnings of the Civil War there, I remember that the Christian Phalangist militia bombed a Christian cookie factory downtown. I was puzzled and asked around as to why they would do that. The best guess of my friends was that they were trying to create unemployment so that the workers would take a pay cut to work as militiamen instead. My guess is, that the attempt to revive the factories is going to meet with a lot of sabotage.
And again we return to the issue of jobs.
January 14th, 2024 at 12:55 pm
Although this is one of the better researched articles I’ve seen in a while in regards to what is happening in Baghdad, it should be noted that the decision for Mahdi to stop wearing black uniforms and limit their exposure was made several months ago and it is not new, it is not in response to the current plans to “surge” and target militia.
If Muqtada ordered this after the speech last week, as suggested by the article, Muqtada was simply reiterating old orders.
January 14th, 2024 at 12:57 pm
Bombing a cookie factory. Now that’s a causus belli if I ever heard of one.
January 15th, 2024 at 5:38 pm
One of the more intersting points I have seen made in some time.